5 Quick Things #353 🐦
history, candles, Old English, & birds' noses
Hey there,
If you spend any time around my youngest son, age 14, then you’ll eventually hear a litany of “fun facts.” He’s been this way since he was little, and I’m so used to it now, it just comes with the territory with him wandering into the kitchen as I’m prepping dinner, clearing his throat, and beginning his recitation. Here’s just a few I heard this week:
The Eiffel Tower and Nintendo were created in the same year — 1889.
The Greenland shark lives for over 500 years and its meat is essentially poison. Also, it eats polar bears. Basically, it’s scary.
The fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the founding of Texas are thirty years apart.
Technically, Abraham Lincoln could have sent a fax to a samurai.
Diesel isn’t actually flammable. (Ask him why, and he’ll get into the science… I mostly hear Charlie Brown’s teacher voice but I know it makes sense to him.)
China has more miles of road than any other country.
Birds’ noses have tiny particles of iron which points them north, hence their ability to navigate so well1. Pigeons have more than the typical bird — hence the homing pigeon.
For clarity or more details, find Finn and ask him. …I can’t help you with any of more information regarding them.
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. New episode of A Drink With a Friend! I talk with historian and homeschooling mom
about homeschooling education, teaching history — imagination is our greatest tool! — leaning into the seasons, writing and reading books, and more. It was a delightful, insightful chat.2. It’s Candlemas this Sunday, a new-ish liturgical tradition for me. I’ll bring some of our beeswax tapers to be blessed at Mass, but what else is this season for? Here’s a lovely deep-dive from
last year on the history of the tradition, plus some lovely art to celebrate it.3. I also appreciated this short reflection on replacing a (broken) television with candles, just in time for Candlemas: “Television numbs the mind. Candlelight, I have found, calms the mind. Television offers distraction and agitation. Candlelight offers focus and peace. Television causes a physical space to recede and disappear from our awareness. Candlelight brings a physical space to life, warming it, massaging it, continuously reinventing its every surface and corner. Television, we all know, facilitates wasteful time. Candles, on the other hand, facilitate restful time. No candlemaker has ever declared sleep to be his primary competitor.”
4. I haven’t mentioned it in awhile, but in case you need reminding: I have a gratitude journal that’s pretty dadgum lovely, if I say so myself. Structured loosely based on St. Ignatius’ practice of Examen, it gives you space to practice gratitude every morning and evening, plus reflect on a few quick prompts that provide a short, simple set of bookends to start and end your day. 10/10, would recommend. Especially during the blah days of winter.
5. And finally… Speaking “Old English” in the last town that still speaks it. Fascinating.
Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚📻
Quotable 💬
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
― Warren Buffett
How are those New Year's Resolutions / Goals / Plans going these days? 🎖️
I’m somewhere between Team Never-Made-Any and Team Tweak. I do make plans, but in 90-day increments because that’s honestly more realistic. …And then I make 1-3 new plans every quarter. Several years of doing this, and it’s working out pretty decently. But yep — I’ve already tweaked at least one of these plans…. But hey! Using my new workout tool four days a week (vs. my original plan of six) is still better than zero days a week, so I’ll take it as a win.
Never made any to begin with: 55%
I've tweaked my original plans but I'm working on 'em: 23.70%
Full steam ahead; making good progress : 19%
Oh — I already forgot I made those: 3%
Find next week’s poll here.
This Summer’s Pilgrimage ⛰️
Join us this summer as we float along the Rhine River! Activities include cheesemaking in Amsterdam, witnessing marvels such as Cologne Cathedral and the abbey of St. Hildegard of Bingen, walking through iconic villages like Strasbourg, getting a behind-the-scenes look at cuckoo clock-making in the Black Forest region, taking a train through the Swiss Alps, and more. I’d love to have you join us!
Quick Links 🔗
Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔
What’s one thing you could do this weekend to make the next few months easier?
Have a great weekend,
- Tsh
p.s. - Touching ice for the first time.
I technically first learned this back when Kyle and I were just friends — he’s so good at navigating and knowing where he is at all times that he was given the nickname “Iron Boogers” for this reason.
This right here ... oh yeah and amen -->
“Television numbs the mind. Candlelight, I have found, calms the mind. Television offers distraction and agitation. Candlelight offers focus and peace. Television causes a physical space to recede and disappear from our awareness. Candlelight brings a physical space to life, warming it, massaging it, continuously reinventing its every surface and corner. Television, we all know, facilitates wasteful time. Candles, on the other hand, facilitate restful time. No candlemaker has ever declared sleep to be his primary competitor.”
Hey, Tsh
Tell Finn that one of the most famous traditional dishes in Iceland is "Putrified Shark". Simple recipe, and I'm not making this up.
Take one Greenland Shark and bury it in sand. along the beach.
Wait till the shark putrifies (he'll love having that wonderful new word in his vocabulary.)
When the shark has been buried in sand for the right number of weeks, you can dig it up and it is no longer poisonous. Yum. You can eat it.
Icelanders like to eat little cubes of putrified shark, like a ripe cheese, with their traditional alcoholic beverage, "Black Death", which is vodka flavored with carraway seeds. But Finn is too young for that.
Aren't boys wonderful!
Chris